14 DAY TRIAL // A few days ago, a news about an explosion of a mobile phone was spread on the Internet - explosion that apparently killed a 33-year-old South Korean man while he was at work in Cheongwon, North Chungcheong province. A colleague of the worker reported that he found his fellow lying on the ground, with an exploded mobile phone in his chest pocket. Transported to the hospital, the man was declared dead on arrival, suffering from internal bleeding, fractured ribs and burns on his chest.
The assumed killer phone was identified as being an LG one. The mobile manufacturer then said it was very unlikely that the phone's battery could have exploded, because all LG products are throughly tested for functionality and safety and, more important, all LG batteries are packed in aluminium foils to prevent explosions - when exposed to powerful external shocks, a battery should just melt and not explode. Which proves to be true, as the phone found in the victim's pocket didn't look exploded, but rather severely melted.
Sure, there have been cases when mobile phones exploded and killed people, but it turned out it was not the case with this South Korean man. This won't change the fact that he is dead, nor it will ease his family's pain, but at least the truth has come to light. A sad truth, but still a truth: the worker was in fact accidentally killed by the colleague who reported the accident, while he was manipulating a 15-ton construction vehicle.
"The co-worker confessed to us last night that he had actually hit him by accident and lied about the mobile phone exploding," declared a police official from Cheongju Heungdeok police station.
The reason why the mobile phone's battery melted still remains unclear. The Cheongju Heungdeok police further investigates the case, believing the phone was either set on fire by the man who unintentionally killed his co-worker or its battery melted after the impact with the heavy-weight construction vehicle.